In semiconductor technology, for the integration of analogue circuit elements, there is a need for passive components, in particular capacitances, of high production quality and reproducibility in conjunction with a large capacitance value and a small area requirement. Since the advancing large-scale integration of semiconductor components means that the lateral dimensions are decreasing to a greater extent in relation to the vertical dimension, the lateral portions of capacitance structures are increasingly gaining in importance.
In the case of a capacitance structure disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,411,492 B1, hexagonal capacitance elements can be integrated into a fabrication process only in a comparatively complicated manner by means of conventional design and layout tools.
A further embodiment of a capacitance structure is disclosed in DE 102 17 565 A1. Within a lattice structure with a virtually body-centred cubic elementary cell, square metal dots are realized as first partial structures in each metallization plane, which are completely enclosed by square lattice frames as second partial structures. In this case, a stack sequence is realized in which, in every second plane, a partial structure is displaced relative to the previous partial structure by in each case half a lateral lattice vector in the x or y direction. Every further partial structure thus completely covers its last but one partial structure again. In the case of this capacitance structure, the vertical partial capacitances are utilized only in very point-like fashion, namely substantially only at the crossover points of two lattice frames lying one above the other. The greatly different structure dimensions of metal dots and lattice frames are disadvantageous in terms of design, layout and production engineering. Since the connecting elements (vias) proceed from crossover points of the lattice structure, a comparatively small lateral misalignment may result in defective contact-connection. Known capacitance structures of this type can be integrated only with difficulty in existing standard cell libraries.